----------------------------
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0056A1HI8/ref=docs-os-doi_0
"Dreamed Up Reality": Diving into the Mind to Uncover the Astonishing Hidden
Tale
of Nature -- Bernardo Kastrup (Author)
-----------------------

And :
www.newscientist.com
" What is reality?"
This week's special issue is a user's guide to the ultimate question of
existence. In eight articles, we explore how to define reality, what it could be
and whether it exists. Does particle physics have the answer, or is mathematics
the ultimate reality? Is the universe all inside your head? And how can we be
sure we're not living in a simulation?
-----------------------

--

Frederick Martin McNeill
Phone: 858 206-3517
Poway, California, USA
Email mmcne...@fuzzysys.com
***************************************
"Problems cannot be solved at the same
level of awareness that created them."
~ Albert Einstein
"The difference between death and taxes is
that death doesn’t get worse every time
Congress meets." -- Will Rogers
**************************************

Book Review of 'Dreamed Up Reality'

By Dirk Vander Ploeg - 1 year 1 week ago Schizophrenic Idealism

By Bernardo Kastrup

The philosophy of idealism, defended through the ages by great minds
like those of George Berkeley, Immanuel Kant, Georg Hegel, Gottfried
Leibniz, and John McTaggart, entails that all reality is ultimately just
a conscious experience. In other words, unlike realism which postulates
an external, objective world 'out there' triggering our perceptions
idealism postulates the existence of nothing but our conscious
perceptions themselves. As such, idealism is a much more parsimonious
and cautious worldview. Yet, somehow, realism has come to completely
*dominate* the worldview of our culture.

Most of us hardly question the assumption that there is a reality 'out
there' independent of our minds; that is, that nature would still go
merrily on even if nobody were looking. Leaving aside the *scientific*
evidence to the contrary, one wonders why realism has come to be
synonymous with our culture's collective intuition of reality.

The problem is that most people, when considering the hypothesis of
idealism, hardly think it through consequently. And in pondering just a
half-baked, 'schizophrenic' version of idealism, contradictions arise
that seem to render it untenable. This is not a sign of lazy thinking or
stupidity on the part of any one of us; it's a side-effect of the
*cultural fog* we live immersed in. You see, in meditating about
idealism most of us still unconsciously retain some key assumptions of
realism. It is these hidden, unconscious assumptions that give rise to
the contradictions, not idealism itself. For instance, we tend to retain
the assumption that minds are inside brains. And then, given that brains
are clearly separate from one another, a contradiction arises. After
all, if reality is only in the 'mind' (meaning, only in the brain), how
come we all share the same reality? That doesn't seem possible; reality
must be external to minds so we can all look at the same reality from
the perspective of different brains. There seems to be no other possible
explanation for the fact that we all seem to share the experience of a
common reality.

Therefore, idealism must be a fallacy. The argument above is malformed
and wrong. It judges idealism while assuming key features of realism.
Namely, it assumes that minds are inside objective structures of an
external reality: brains. But according to idealism there are no such
things as objective structures in a reality external to mind; instead,
it's all in the mind.

So the mind is not in the brain; it's the brain that is in the mind. The
dream is not in the body; it's the body that is in the dream. As such,
bodies and brains can be seen as space-time anchors for a certain
point-of-view taken by mind within a kind of palpable, continuous dream.
The fact that brains are separate from each other in the canvas of such
dream says absolutely nothing about the limitations of mind as far as
coordinating a dream shared by its many points-of-view in a very
consistent manner. When an idealist says that 'it's all in here,'
pointing at this head, he is at best expressing himself metaphorically
and, at worst, being unconsciously inconsistent with his own position.
To a true idealist, reality is not in the head; it's the head that is in
the mind.

Ultimately, the dichotomy idealism-versus-realism may be no dualism at
all. To say that everything is a construct within a mind is not to deny
any of the qualities of experience: the concreteness, solidity, or
continuity of things. This form of monistic idealism does not deny
physics insofar as the latter entails models for predicting how things
behave empirically; it only denies some of our ontological assumptions
about how our experience of such behaviors comes into being. In other
words, monistic idealism questions only our myths and stories, not our
empirical observations. Such non-dualistic view entails merely that the
spectrum of qualities normally associated to constructs of the
imagination extends further beyond our ordinary intuition as far as
their potential concreteness, solidity, and continuity  than we ever
dared think. I wanted to write this article today to mark the release of
my second book,
Dreamed up Reality. I wanted to give you a taste of the key idea I dwell
upon in it; the idea that, ultimately, all data about reality â€"
about what may or may not be going on resides in the mind. From a strict
epistemic perspective, the 'external' world is a story we tell
ourselves; a non-provable myth, reasonable and self-consistent as it may
appear. As such, if one wants to set out on a path of exploration
unhindered by the cultural fog we live in, one must go back to basics
and start from within the mind: What does one really know from
experience and what is, instead, myth and story-telling? This was my
attempt many years ago and I now decided, through my new book, to share
that story.

If you would like more information or to purchase this book from
amazon.com simply click on its title: Dreamed Up Reality:

LET'S SEE, SHOULD I TAKE THE BLUE PILL OR THE RED PIL ???

Immanuel Kant: "The term 'idealist' is not, therefore, to be understood
as applying to those who deny the existence of external objects of the
senses, but only to those who do not admit that their existence is known
through immediate perception, and who therefore conclude that we can
never, by way of any possible experience, be completely certain as to
their reality. Before exhibiting our paralogism in all its deceptive
illusoriness, I have first to remark that we must necessarily
distinguish two types of idealism, the transcendental and the empirical.
By transcendental idealism I mean the doctrine that appearances are to
be regarded as being, one and all, representations only, not things in
themselves, and that time and space are therefore only sensible forms of
our intuition, not determinations given as existing by themselves, nor
conditions of objects viewed as things in themselves.

". . . Neither the transcendental object which underlies outer
appearances nor that which underlies inner intuition, is in itself
either matter or a thinking being, but a ground (to us unknown) of the
appearances which supply to us the empirical concept of the former as
well as of the latter mode of existence. If then, as this critical
argument obviously compels us to do, we hold fast to the rule above
established, and do not push our questions beyond the limits within
which possible experience can present us with its object, we shall never
dream of seeking to inform ourselves about the objects of our senses as
they are in themselves, that is, out of all relation to the senses. But
if the psychologist takes appearances for things in themselves, and as
existing in and by themselves, then whether he be a materialist who
admits into his system nothing but matter alone, or a spiritualist who
admits only thinking beings (that is, beings with the form of our inner
sense), or a dualist who accepts both, he will always, owing to this
misunderstanding, be entangled in pseudo-rational speculations as to how
that which is not a thing in itself, but only the appearance of a thing
in general, can exist by itself.

". . . We are justified, [it is argued], in maintaining that only what
is in ourselves can be perceived immediately, and that my own existence
is the sole object of a mere perception. The existence, therefore, of an
actual object outside me (if this word 'me' be taken in the [P 345]
intellectual [not in the empirical] sense) is never given directly in
perception. Perception is a modification of inner sense, and the
existence of the outer object can be added to it only in thought, as
being its outer cause, and accordingly as being inferred.

"Accordingly, as regards the relation of the perception to its
[ultimate] cause [minus spatiotemporal relations], it always remains
doubtful whether the cause be internal or external; whether, that is to
say, all the so-called outer perceptions are not a mere play of our
inner sense, or whether they stand in relation to actual external [as
transcendent] objects as their cause. At all events, the existence of
the latter is only inferred, and is open to all the dangers of
inference, whereas the object of inner sense (I myself with all my
representations) is immediately perceived, and its existence does not
allow of being doubted."

Or can we?  That perhaps, is the question at hand.

In the end, my own base logic tells me this is 'just an experience'.  We are 'experience' machines.  This is not to jusfity the 'insane asylum' scenario, where everyone might fly off into their own 'invented' reality [for sake of whatever state of experience they might want]...although, there is already some truth to this, as we all exist within our own frame of minds as relating to the unique memories of past experiences we all carry.  

The 'object' to me, is to find that 'BEST' experience this place and time offers.  Perhaps it even affords itself as a matter of our evolution...best fit and all, with some caveat for 'advancement' [as seen by our best and brightest which lead us through time].  

It's appears to be a trial and error bumping heads game plan nature has for us, where through sheer empirical hindsight, do we eventually find our best 'path from here' direction to take.  

For me, I have yet to see anything to deter my own chosen path toward a Christ-like state as a POSSIBILITY in that mind-state, where, even as less than pond scum to cosmic nothingness, we can 'create' things like worth and value among ourselves as a matter of the virtues we find within [and then attempt to nurture and grow such virtues].  

I do not know what 'love' is.  It is electrical; chemical in nature; tied to our nervous systems for sure. And yet, it exists also on the simple airiness of thought itself, and can be cultivated, nurtured, and grown by the 'virtues' we promulugate within ourselves [again, by the very thought we carry and pursue].  

So, I'm betting my wager on 'love' as that path of best hope from which our 'next' step should be taken across time [from this point of desert nothingness, and 'less than scum' reality].  Love [whatever it is], appears to be 'real enough'. And if there is no significanse, then perhaps we had better get busy and 'invent' some.  Somewhere, in that vast desert, there just might be an oasis of some sort; at least sustaining of our continued survival if nothing else.  

<snip>